Diferenciação da navegação espacial de idosos institucionalizados pré-frágeis e frágeis por meio do Floor Maze Test

Abstract

The objective of the study was to investigate an association between spatial navigation and the frailty of institutionalized elderly people. The Floor Maze Test (FMT) was selected to assess spatial navigation. The execution times of the FMT, Immediate Maze Test (IMT) and Delayed Maze Test (DMT) were organized into quartiles, for further analysis. The results of this investigation are important in two scientific articles. The first work investigated whether space navigation can differentiate institutionalized elderly from pre-frail and frail. Fischer's exact test was used to verify the association between performance in the FMT and frailty through observed and expected frequencies. An analysis of the data revealed that the performance of pre-frail and frail participants is different in the two stages of the FMT. DMT is associated with frailty, even after controlling for the gait covariate. The second study sought to understand which physical and cognitive aspects are capable of predicting spatial navigation in institutionalized elderly people. For each time of the FMT, a binary logistic regression model was applied. According to the results found, of all the variables inserted in the binary logistic regression models, only semantic fluency / executive function was able to predict performance, both in IMT and in DMT. The data also revealed that those below the 25th percentile (65s in IMT and 62s in DMT) have more preserved global cognition. Thus, it is possible to conclude that there is an association between space navigation and frailty, with space navigation being able to differentiate the stages of frailty of institutionalized elderly into pre-frail and frail and, finally, semantic fluency / executive function can predict the space navigation of this population.